March 14, 1999
Three stories. The most recent is of a man about 40 years old; I'll call him George. He used to come to our church in Olympia with other people from a group home for adults with developmental disabilities. They sat in the front row on the right hand side of the church, and George always sat at the end of the pew, right by the center aisle. He loved to turn to the congregation and direct the singing; when we celebrated birthdays he always liked to go up and stand by the rector. Sometimes he would turn and bless the people at the end of the service.
One Sunday morning I happened to look up and see him as he went up the steps to the altar rail to receive communion. He stopped at the top of the steps and made a swooping, swan-dive bow in the direction of the altar. He didn't have the official theological vocabulary to explain what he was doing, but it was very clear that the eyes of his heart had been opened to the mystery he was saluting. Somehow, when he came to that altar, he saw enough to know the importance of going to that Table in a deep if inexpressible way. Perhaps he saw, in that particular instance, more clearly than the rest of us. Perhaps the man called Jesus had touched his eyes of faith and called him into seeing.
Another story, another continent, another time. He was born in 1725, the son of a shipmaster. He was impressed into service with the English Navy and eventually commanded a slave trading ship. He was converted to Christianity on the 10th of March, 1748, and after a time was ordained and served at Olney and later at St. Mary's, London, bringing large numbers of people to Christ. He was blind in his later years, and died in London in 1807.
His epitaph, which he wrote, reads: John Newton clerk, once an Infidel and Libertine, A servant of slaves in Africa, was by the rich mercy of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, preserved, restored, pardoned And appointed to preach the Faith he had long labored to destroy. Newton had a rough and raucous early life, but later wrote hymns that we still use today: "Glorious things of thee are spoken, Zion, city of our God", and "How sweet the Name of Jesus sounds in a believer's ear" (which ends, "but when I see thee as thou art, I'll praise thee as I ought."). But we know him best as the author of one of the hymns we love the most here:
"Amazing Grace". Our Lord had touched and opened his eyes too.
Another story, another continent, another time. A man blind from birth.
Jesus is walking along and sees the man. His disciples go to the past for an explanation, asking who sinned... that he was born blind? But Jesus calls them into the present, saying, We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day... As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.
And then he spits on the ground and makes mud with the saliva and spreads it on the man's eyes, telling him to go and wash in the pool of Siloam, which was used for purifying ritual baths. The man goes and washes and comes back able to see. Able to see, as the story progresses, in more than a physical sense.
The people around him don't know what to make of this, any more than the people around George when he made his extravagant gesture of worship; probably the people around John Newton were equally perplexed at his conversion from slave-ship captain to hymn-writer. Is this the same one? How can it be? It must be someone who looks like him.... How were his eyes opened?
The people around him ask the formerly blind man, What do you say about him? It was your eyes he opened. For any person of faith in any time on any continent, that question still remains: What do you say about him? It was your eyes he opened.
The people still can't believe it, so they call his parents to make sure that this is really the same man. But they are afraid, knowing that anyone who confessed Jesus to be the Messiah would be put out of the synagogue. So they dodge the question and send the people back to the newly-seeing one, with an answer not unfamiliar to parents: He is of age; ask him.
Back they go, for the second time, and they tell him, Give glory to God! a ritual oath formula calling the person to tell the truth and they say, we know that this man is a sinner. The man replies, I do not know whether he is a sinner. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see. He gets a little weary of the questioning, and shoots back, I have told you already, and you would not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become his disciples?
They are not amused, and they drive him out. Jesus hears, and finds him, and asks, Do you believe in the Son of Man? And the man, whose physical sight is now clear, but who is still in a semi-blur spiritually, asks, And who is he, sir? Tell me, so that I may believe in him. Jesus [says] to him, "You have seen him, and the one speaking with you is he." And then the eyes of his heart are opened, and he says, Lord, I believe. And he bows down before Jesus and worships him.
Three stories, three people, three continents, three times three people whose eyes were opened, and who bowed down before the Lord in worship.
We are called to Bow down before the Lord each Sunday in Lent. But we are called throughout the year, throughout our lives, across the ages, to know who it is we worship, to allow his amazing grace to heal and illumine us, and to bow down before him in worship. We are called, today and every day, to see and celebrate the mystery: we are preserved, restored, pardoned, as John Newton said, -- and called to share that knowledge. Like the three different people in these stories, each of us finds our own way to do that, but whatever that way is, let us all pray that through grace our eyes will be opened, and we will truly and fully be able to say, Lord, I believe.
The Rev. Lois Hart
lhart@stmargarets.org
14 March 1999